20 Apr 2023
In short, highly recommended - we never would have navigated the souk so effectively nor learned so much without our guide. Also extra credit to him as our tour was 3-7pm during Ramadan so he hadn’t eaten or drank anything since before sun rise.
In long, our tour included the following with no pressure to buy at the buying sites:
1. Guide pick up from hotel and walk into the Souk - guide explained some really interesting basics of the city, it’s people and architecture
2. Walk through various quarters of the Souk including sewing, silk, wedding etc - guide provided interesting commentary
3. Arabic carpet shop - fabulous but just above our budget for a carpet
4. Quranic school museum - extra 20DH per person to get in and well worth in
5. Crockery shop - this was a specific request from us and we bought some traditional crockery
6. Photo outside museum of wood and crafts (closing by time we got there)
7. Berber carpet shop - bought a Berber carpet we’re really happy with and guide helped us negotiate
8. Photo outside entrance to tomb of Idris II (only Muslims can enter)
9. Berber apothecary shop - shown some lovely skin creams etc and would have bought smthg but were just out of money at this stage
10. Photo outside the oldest university in the World (only Muslims can enter)
11. Tannery & shop - had never been to a traditional tannery before so really eye opening. Didn’t buy anything in the shop but they had an enormous range of leather jackets if you were in the market for one
12. Guide took us back to our hotel